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Science / Our Planet

An aerial view of a fossil of Archaeopteris, a 385-million-year-old tree with surprisingly modern-looking roots.

The World’s Oldest Forest Has 385-Million-Year-Old Tree Roots

A trove of arboreal fossils pushes back the origin of modern forests and sophisticated tree roots

Ecologists fear that repaving the highway known as BR-319 will open new sections of the Amazon to catastrophic deforestation.

Is the Amazon on a Road to Ruin?

Brazil’s plan to develop a lonesome track in the heart of the rainforest poses a threat the whole world may someday have to overcome

Thousands of brooding octopuses were discovered in 2018 on the ocean floor off the coast of California.

Eighteen Things We’ve Learned About the Oceans in the Last Decade

In the past 10 years, the world’s oceans have faced new challenges, revealed new wonders, and provided a roadmap for future conservation

The Ten Best Science Books of 2019

New titles explore the workings of the human body, the lives of animals big and small, the past and future of planet earth and how it’s all connected

Bioluminescent "sea fireflies," a species of ostracod crustacean, covering the rocks on the coast of Okayama, Japan.

How Studying Bioluminescent Creatures Is Transforming Medical Science

The natural light of insects and sea creatures can help doctors illuminate H.I.V. and even kill cancer cells

The tooth-filled mouth of a lamprey. These bloodsucking fish have managed to survive for hundreds of millions of years.

Why the World Needs Bloodsucking Creatures

The ecological benefits of animals like leeches, ticks and vampire bats are the focus of a new exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum

At Agate Fossil Beds National Monument near the town of Harrison, Nebraska, visitors can view in the outcropping a curious spiral-shaped fossil called Daimonelix, also known as Devil's Corkscrew.

Beyond Dinosaurs: The Secrets of Earth's Past

How Scientists Resolved the Mystery of the Devil’s Corkscrews

Smithsonian paleontologist Hans-Dieter Sues tells the tale of a fossil find that bedeviled early 20th-century researchers

Thanks to the ubiquity of electric light, less and less of the planet falls genuinely into darkness any more.

How Cities and Lights Drive the Evolution of Life

Urbanization and the spread of artificial light are transforming all of earth’s species, bringing about a host of unintended consequences

Paired Images of Melting Glaciers and Flooding Wetlands Tell the Story of Global Climate Change

Photographer Tina Freeman’s exhibition ‘Lamentations’ at the New Orleans Museum of Art juxtaposes two different environments

Female wasp of the newly described species Idris elba (holotype specimen).

Tiny Parasitic Wasp Named After Idris Elba Hijacks Stink Bug Eggs

The wasp genus Idris had only been known to infest spider eggs, until now

An ice patch nearing complete melt in northern Mongolia's Ulaan Taiga Special Protected Area, 2018.

Archaeologists Race to Preserve Artifacts as the Ice Melts in Mongolia

Disappearing patches of ice unleash new artifacts for discovery, but many could quickly degrade exposed to the elements

Pack rats near their nest, or midden, in the City of Rocks National Reserve in Idaho.

From Ancient Seeds to Scraps of Clothing, Rats’ Nests Are Full of Treasures

Material gathered and preserved in a pack rat’s midden helps researchers open new windows on the past

An image of the Camp Fire in Northern California on November 8, 2018, from the Landsat 8 satellite.

Scientists Around the World Declare ‘Climate Emergency’

More than 11,000 signatories to a new research paper argue that we need new ways to measure the impacts of a changing climate on human society

This high-precision GPS station is in the Ford Range of Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. It is part of the Polar Earth Observing Network (POLENET), which collects GPS and seismic measurements to understand ice sheet behavior. It’s one example of the varied data that scientists are gleaning from GPS instruments.

Five Things You Probably Didn’t Know GPS Could Do

Scientists use the navigation system to measure and monitor many aspects of our planet

Collections at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History are filled with all sorts of eerie specimens.

Smithsonian Voices

Six Bewitching Smithsonian Specimens to Get You Ready for Halloween

Check out some of the spookiest (read: coolest) items in the National Museum of Natural History’s collections.

Understanding plankton is essential to studying how ocean life is sustained.

This Device Has Been Measuring the Ocean’s Plankton Since the 1930s

Largely unchanged since it was invented, the Continuous Plankton Recorder collects plankton as it is towed behind a ship

CGI rendering of ancient Loxolophus mammal taken from the PBS NOVA special, Rise of the Mammals. In this recreation, Loxolophus scavenges for food in the palm dominated forests found within the first 300,000 years after the dinosaur extinction.

Fossil Site Reveals How Mammals Thrived After the Death of the Dinosaurs

Recent discoveries highlight how mammals lived before and after the asteroid impact that triggered the world’s fifth mass extinction

Photosynthesis evolved some 2.5 billion years ago, transforming life on Earth.

This Type of Algae Absorbs More Light for Photosynthesis Than Other Plants

Though evolutionary mergers between cells, some algae have developed the ability to convert a wider spectrum of light energy into sugars

By collecting images and GPS data from citizen divers, scientists can get a better sense of the health of the entire Great Barrier Reef.

Massive Citizen Science Effort Seeks to Survey the Entire Great Barrier Reef

Only about 1,000 of 3,000 individual reefs have been documented, but the Great Reef Census hopes to fill in the gaps

"An important first step is understanding how tropical forests worldwide, climate, and the food and other products that we consume are all interconnected on the global scale. Collectively we can have a real impact," says forest ecologist Kristina Anderson-Teixeira.

Yes, Tropical Forests Tragically Burned This Summer, but Here’s What You Can Do

Fires stoked worldwide anxiety, but Smithsonian forest ecologist Kristina Anderson-Teixeira offers a few practices for making a difference

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